Green lawfare on ALP’s watch amounts to economic sabotage

Protesters hold a banner at the front of the Federal Court of Australia, which was hearing an appeal by Santos over its Barossa gas project, in November 2022. Picture: Getty Images

Imagine a foreign organisation was secretly funding a sophisticated campaign to damage Australia’s economy, divert billions of dollars of investment away from our country, destroy tens of thousands of our blue-collar jobs and bring Australia’s leading position in economic exports to an end.

This scenario may sound far-fetched but it’s happening right now. Last week’s Federal Court order against the Environmental Defenders Office has shone a light on this crucial national security issue. The EDO, alongside other extreme green activists, is engaging in a hostile campaign to destroy Australia’s resources sector and kill off one of our nation’s economic engines. No less than our largest export earning sector, a source of regional jobs, is at stake.

The EDO employs lawfare to halt significant economic projects that are already under construction after receiving government approval. Its legal challenges are procedural and will likely delay, rather than stop, projects.

But the goal isn’t just to try to stop projects. The goal of these activists is more sinister: to end a large part of Australia’s resources industry altogether. They seek to create so much uncertainty in the investment and approvals process – with so many risks of delays and costs – that investment will cease. Potential investors won’t try to invest in Australia any more.

One of the EDO’s funders explicitly states the campaign is about opposing the offshore oil and gas sector and “ultimately stopping it altogether”. The org­anisation wants every one of the thousands of workers in the offshore oil and gas industry to lose their jobs, and it is winning in its onslaught against the economy.

Tens of billions of dollars in potential investment in Australia have stalled because of the EDO’s tactics. International lenders are increasing the cost of lending to Australian projects because of the heightened lawfare risks. Some of the nation’s largest companies have felt little choice but to invest elsewhere. Australia has lost its reputation as a safe place to invest. An approval by the government doesn’t mean anything any more and the detrimental impact will be felt beyond the resources sector.

Tactics employed by activists and the EDO have been unscrupulous. The Federal Court has highlighted how they have manufactured evidence, how clients were lied to and sacred Indigenous connections to country distorted for environmental ends.

The costs awarded against the EDO last week are an extraordinary outcome and would have occurred only if the court found egregious conduct by the EDO.

This is the problem when a group sees ending fossil fuels as an absolute, where it believes ideological ends justify any means.

The EDO appears to have gone to great lengths to avoid disclosing its funding sources during recent litigation. This raises the question: What is it hiding?

From the limited disclosure available, it appears a large part of the EDO’s funding comes from foreign entities, including in the US and Europe. We don’t know the full extent of the foreign funding because there is little disclosure required by the EDO of its funding sources and who is behind it. May foreign vested commercial interests or hostile actors be funding the EDO’s litigation against Australia’s economy?

When a foreign-funded group orchestrates a sophisticated, well-funded campaign to devastate the most important part of Australia’s economy for ideological ends, it becomes a national security issue in addition to an economic one.

The Greens have been labelled economic terrorists by the former head of the Australian Workers Union. But it’s less accountable environmental groups such as the EDO that are doing more economic damage. (The EDO and Greens are also connected, with the group receiving funding from the Bob Brown Foundation and the EDO having paid an activist who was collaborating with the Greens, according to reporting in The Australian last week.)

Most people would expect our government to take seriously the national security risk that’s presented by foreign-funded groups deliberately harming our economy for their own ideological ends. At a minimum, the government might insist on more transparency concerning the activities and funding sources of these groups. But instead of scrutinising the EDO’s activities and foreign funding sources, the Labor government is funding them, too.

The biggest victim of the EDO’s unscrupulous tactics have been Indigenous Australians. The EDO hypocritically pretends to represent the interests of Indigenous Australians while abusing Indigenous rights as a pretext for its environmental litigation. The EDO has undermined recognised Indigenous leadership claims and Native Title bodies; its distorted the sacred Indigenous connection to country in pursuit of an ulterior environmental agenda.

There are Indigenous leaders who are appalled by the actions of the EDO. Old wounds from often painful years-long processes of determining native title and leadership claims now may be torn open because of the EDO’s tactics. Many Indigenous communities are suffering from consultation fatigue in the wake of the EDO’s litigation, which has increased the consultation standard to unworkable levels. And Indigenous communities that support local resources projects and the economic benefits that could result from them may be left empty-handed.

If a mining company undermined a local Indigenous community and misrepresented its Indigenous heritage, it rightly would be raked over the coals. Yet when an environmental organisation acts so despicably towards Indigenous Australians, it gets a pass (and taxpayer funds to boot).

By funding the EDO, Labor is funding economic terrorism against our own economy, undermining the energy security of Australia and our allies, and has failed to stand up for Indigenous Australians once again.

Saul Kavonic is head of energy research at equities research firm MST Marquee.